sheldrake

Awwwww, look atcha. Ain't you all gorgeous? I could just eat you all up.

THINGS I HAVE DONE

I like capslock. I don't know why it gets such a bad rap REALLY I DON'T.

So, things I have done include I have tagged all my LJ entries ever ever. Tagged 'em all up, I did. Tagged those entries right up.

Also, I uploaded all my fic to teh archive of our own thingy here. That was fun.

I broke my achingly unhealthy habit of always having 50 tabs open at a time in Firefox, by organising everything on a Protopage. That was the most fun of all. I almost felt like my life was totally under control after I did that. I know -- laughable. But look -- only seven tabs open.

Next, I must get back to my other projects of archiving all my artwork on Flickr, cataloguing all my books on LibraryThing, and typing up and filing away all the poetry I've ever written.

Hmmm...

This sudden obsession for organisation and archiving and labelling... doesn't it feel spookily like I'm tying up loose ends? I do hope the organising bit of my brain doesn't know something I don't! *twilight zone music*

I am reading The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, which is about what the concept of wildness means and whether it can still be found on the crowded, built-up island that is Britain, and stories and maps and journeys and other things. It is rather lovely. Although trying to sleep on top of a mountain, in winter, without a tent, is still quite mad.

And I am reading Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, following some-writer-or-other's recommendation in the Guardian article Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. This book, I tell you, is MADE OF AWESOME. It was first published in 1934, which begs the question: SO HOW COME IT'S ABOUT ME???

Ok, have to lay off the capslock. I'm sorry.

In other news, Monty Don is my hero, my evening primrose seeds have germinated, and it rains for ever and for ever and for ever and a day, amen.

GOODBYE NOW.

Hello. I did hope to bring you another update on the Christmas cactus, which is now looking most impressive, but it always seems to be obscured by drying dishes whenever I think to take its picture... and by the time I've dried them and put them away, it's dark or I've forgotten.

My moods have been a bit odd lately - yesterday was a washout, but I've got a fair bit done today and enjoyed myself. Plus, new Doctor Who in an hour! Hooray!

I've been meaning to link to this for ages. Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. I love her writing and this is a really great talk, full of wisdom about the stories we tell ourselves about our world. Give it a watch/listen -- it's worth it.

I'm currently rereading Derek Jarman's Modern Nature -- one of my favourite books, and one I can read over and over (it's also full of underlining from when I used it for my dissertation back in college). I love it because it's so calm, full of meditations on gardens (it is in part a chronicle of the garden Jarman created in Dungeness) and history and memories, and yet there is anger and sadness there too. It's wildly romantic, and unapologetically subversive. The journal begins in January 1989 -- 20 years ago. Time flies...

I wanted to share this entry, because it made me smile.

( Dealing with tabloids the Derek Jarman way )

It must be because my Christmas cactus is coming into bloom! Oh, it's made me so proud! It never does this. It's looking a bit more spectacular now, I took this the other day.

What else? I have done stuff today. I decided I wasn't allowed to post here until I'd done stuff, and today I wrote a thousand words, scanned lots of stuff, uploaded lots of stuff, and made serious inroads into organising my Flickr photostream.

And now I must away to bed, as I have used up all my time. Which is sad.

Adieu, flist.

Every now and then I want to write Gardeners' World fic. Is that so very wrong? It's just such an odd, surreal world they inhabit -- an unnaturally quiet, slightly creepy world, like Mr McGregor's garden. An enclosed world. Watching it sometimes I feel I'm intruding, a voyeur peering through the potting shed door as Joe does something to his seed-trays. He never seems to mind, though. He looks up, sees me, and cheerily demonstrates a propagation technique, like Blue Peter for grown-ups. Through the potting shed window, I glimpse Alys tiptoeing silently by with a hoe.

***

Oh. I thought I had more to say than that. Turns out not.

I was going to do a proper post but I feel too lethargic and stuff. Here's what it would have had in it:

some pictures of stuff
Me saying I've probably got some Dreamwidth codes if anyone wants them.
some other stuff I forget now.

AND NOW. I shall type without thinking first. It's a clever trick.

( only read if you're quite bored )

I am a rubbish LJ-er. RUBBISH!

If everybody posted the way I do, LJ would actually collapse. It would be a pitiful ghost town, wind whistling desolately through its dusty hallways, cobwebs festooning the shadowed corners. At the end of an echoing corridor, you think you see a pale flash - a sign of life? No. Just a dirty rag, flapping to and fro in the breeze. Far in the distance, a wolf howls in despair as it realises it has received zero feedback for its really very good actually 12,000-word epic Littlest Hobo fic.

Anyway. I've also lost the ability to reply to things, apparently. So thank you, everyone who had something to say to my ideas on replacing my brain with a rockery, or the pictures of my new house. You are all so very much appreciated, I'm just a lazy arse who doesn't deserve to be responded to.

Wrt the rockery issue, I considered it, but stuck with the vital organ in the end -- I'm crap at gardening anyway. And generally, feeling much better now, so that worked out well. Yay!

My sofa should be arriving on Monday. Cripes! Hope I like it, after all this. Don't worry, I shall take pictures.

Nothing else has occurred.

I'm really tired this evening. Can't be bothered sentences.

Anyway. Reason recent reticence. Tired of own ranting and angry talking sad things. Gone to ground. Buried head in sand. Pulled wool over own eyes. Went back under bedclothes.

Try for positive! Unexplained recent positive:

Radio: John le Carré, Attenboroughs.
Books. Brave Roman boys on noble quest.
Tickets for Russells.
Singing.
Battlestar G.
Beer festival. Mmm, chocolate orange beer. Friendly folky beardy men.
Friend's beautiful wedding, idyllic sunshine, butterflies etc. Friendly folky beardy men.
Chilli on plate.
Chilli on plant.
Sharing lolcat love.
Knitting Seaman's Cap.
Tomorrow: Keyboard buying for musical playing.

I still heart Ray Kowalski.

I've crawled out of the low mood I was in from Sunday to Thursday, which is very yay, and have done some nice things. Went to St Edmundsbury Cathedral with my mum, to see (well, hear, really) the Tallis Scholars singing Palestrina and Tavener, among other things. They were pretty darn amazing. Then spend Friday evening with friends and some bottles of wine in the very nice, tiny Indian restaurant round the corner from my flat. Mmm, food. And today I've been down at curiousworld's allotment, where I dug up a bed of stubborn leeks. Then we ate some of them and I took some home. Mmm, leeks. :) Also blisters, to prove how hardworking I am.

Also recently received my electricity bill. :( Will be eating cold food by candlelight for the rest of the year.

Look - it's my species!

lobelia321 looked it up for me.

Flatmate R is in Glastonbury this weekend, so I'm watering her plants. It took ages! She has them in all the most inconvenient places. I had to climb up things. I nearly fell out of the window! Anyway, so I just got it all done, and then it rained.